Bodkin or AWP?

Scientists are really weird. I was reading about Isaac Newton,
for example. How once he inserted a bodkin into his eye socket,
just to see what would happen. Another time he stared at the sun.

Now, okay, that's pretty strange. I was thinking
how poets don't do stuff like that.

But then I thought about AWP . . .
Suddenly a bodkin didn't sound so bad.

Okay

Are you okay?

Define okay.

So you're not okay.

Did I say that?

Estoy aqui

In El Salvador,
sometimes when you ask how are you,
the answer is simply:
aqui.

A conversation among women

I hate it when men write those poems about breasts.

You mean like Will's? This week? The one dedicated to
you know who you are?
Why?

I don't know. It's the whole deal: I like big ones
and little ones. And that word, pert.
Or was it perky?
What if I wrote about men like that.

Maybe you should give it a try.

Yeah. With all my experience.
I've only slept with 3.2 men.

.2?

Oh yeah. Lots of .2s. I've had way too many .2s.
Pert is not the word there. Or perky.

Are you going to explain that?

What? You think I should write a poem about it?
Maybe dedicate it:
This is for .2s. You know who you are . . .

That might offend some folks.

Oh. And I would never want to do that.

Singles Night

You don't want to talk about it?

No, not really. It was in a church.
You know, one of those basement events.

The singles met in a church basement?

Yeah.

But you didn't meet anyone you liked?
Were there any men there?

No.
And sort of.

They were sort of there?
Or you sort of liked them.

Sort of.

Okay. What did you do?

Ate. Everyone else ate.
I lost my appetite.

Ate?

Yeah, jello.
Jello salad.

Oh. I see.

Strange thing

My neighbor tells me his yard is sinking.
Some days he wakes up and the lawn is down a few inches.
Other days it's down a few feet.

Recipes

Last week someone DARED to ask me to contribute recipe
to a recipe collection.


I stayed up late debating
which I should contribute . . .
my recipe for Tomato Aspic,
Salad under the Sea,
(green jello, things within)
or Spam Florentine?

I'm leaning towards the last.

Yep, Spam Florentine. It is so simple!
Anyone can make it!
In just 30 minutes, too!
All it requires, like all good recipes,
is a can of Campbell's soup
(one of the yummy, creamy ones:
mushroom, chicken, celery)
1 can Spam Luncheon meat, cubed,
1/4 cup milk,
1 package frozen spinach,
nuked on high until it melts
into a pool of slime.
Mix ingredients.
Cover with shredded cheddar cheese.
Bake at 375 for 15 minutes
and serve with Miracle Whip.

If this is an appetizer,
serve it in parfait glasses,
topped with dollops of Miracle Whip.
For a festive look, sprinke
the top with little Spamenitos.

And remember, always serve from the left,
and take away dishes from the right!

% ?

Okay, so . . .
I'm chewing this horrible tasting gum right now.
Orbit. Spearmint. But! The package promises
that this gum will whiten my teeth
and remove 40% of the stains.
Soon I will only have 60% of my teeth stained!
I keep chewing and thinking about this. Tell me.
Someone.
How do they determine what % of my stains will vanish?
Or rather . . . remain?
Will 40% of my teeth be whiter than the rest
if I just chew on, say, my right side?
I keep picturing this. 4 out of 10 teeth white,
6 out of 10 stained . . .

Pollution and politics

Lately I've been hooked on politics,
watching the different candidates . . .
I go thru these spells where I think if only . . .
then . . .

Of course, the then never happens.

I have had so many bad experiences with politicians
and so much hope for so many of them . . . at all levels.
From the local on up. You'd think I'd learn.

For example, on the local level,
I remember ages ago, once upon a time,
when my kids were little, maybe 6 and 8 years old,
we met the mayor of Shaker Heights.
Pat Mearns. She was nice, and she chatted with me
and my kids. Jim had known her daughter in law school,
and had even attended her daughter's wedding,
and this was back in the days when he was a lawyer
at a huge firm in Cleveland. So for some reason,
I (mistakenly) felt almost connected to the mayor.
She was, after all, nice, young, Democratic, accessible,
and she always acted as if she knew me.


A year later, the creek behind our house became polluted.
Maybe it always was. But there was a drought that year,
and with it came an aroma of shit in our creek, so strong
it could knock you out. I didn't like opening the windows.
I didn't let the kids play back there.

I had the city come out and investigate many times.
They flushed the creek every time, which meant they flooded it
to wash out the offending odor.
Of course, the scent returned in a day or two.

I called the city, the sewer district (NEORSD), the Ohio EPA . . .
No one did a thing, although the NEORSD did finally test the water
and concluded that the fecal count was extremely high.
(They didn't want to release the results to me and refused for months . . . )

So Suzanne decided to write the mayor. After all, S remembered
she'd met the mayor. And the mayor had said to her:
if you ever have any questions about our city,
just ask me. Mayors take care of cities.
Suzanne loved to write letters. And she loved the idea
of a person who takes care of cities.
The mayor had made quite an impression on her.

So she wrote the mayor: Dear Mayor,
You met me at the pool. I was wearing a pink swim suit. Remember?
You said to write if I had a question. I wanted to tell you
our creek is dirty. It has poop in it. It killed my frogs.
It smells like a toilet no one flushes.
Can you fix it?

A week later the mayor wrote back.
Dear Suzanne,
Your creek is not in my city. It's in Beachwood.

????
The letter was addressed to our home
which did have a Shaker Heights address . . .

It is true that our creek ran through Shaker and Beachwood.


It took about three years before the EPA was ready to act.
About ten years later, the problem was fixed.
We had long since moved.

France best, US worst in preventable death ranking

www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN07651650

I find these reports so alarming. I guess everyone saw Sicko. So maybe I shouldn't be surprised.

But when I was in the hills of El Salvador, I remember seeing a number of pregnant women. Where do they deliver their babies? I asked. How do they get prenatal care?

They have midwives, Suzanne said. No doctors. She had spent a few days translating for doctors (who came in from the US to volunteer for a week) and said many of the women hadn't seen a doctor in their entire lives. There were so many women lined up with an entire life history of medical questions for her to ask-- and then translate back the answers. By the end of the day the doctors were angry and tired and wanted to know why there weren't better facilities. As if somehow it was too much for them: the heat, the lack of running water, the needs of these women . . .

I asked a doctor in Cleveland how these women did it. What risks they ran. He speculated that they probably have a high infant mortality rate. That some of the moms died in childbirth.

I was stunned when I heard Michael Moore say in his film that the US has a higher infant mortality rate than El Salvador.

To give or not to give

Last weekend I was with some friends who were discussing money. To be more precise, they were trying to decide which organizations to donate money to this year. None of these particular friends have much money, but they like to give.

I'm always curious what makes people give money to what, when, and why. Some of the comments surprised me.

You could give to literary orgs, I suggested because it was such a literary crowd. None of the writers in the room seemed particularly interested. Not sure why.

You could give to The Rescue Mission, another woman suggested. But they're so evangelical, yet another objected.

What about Grist? I was asked. I do love Grist, and I was tempted to give to Grist last winter when Umbra was held hostage for so long. But then Grist started bragging about how Barbara Boxer had just donated. Suddenly I lost all interest. When an organization gets so big, it can attract the name-brand crowd, who needs us?

What about politicians? Everyone groaned.

The discussion went on and on. I decided after a while that giving has no good logic but is more of a personal recipe no one wants to reveal.

I had the sense that it was like those polls in New Hampshire. Folks might say they want one candidate, but when they're in that booth, they vote differently.

I was really happy to hear more good things about the local organizations: SMARTS, Second Harvest Food Bank, The Mahoning River Consortium . . .

Post-vacation Blues

I have the post vacation blues. Bad. I miss my kids way too much every time they leave. And each time they come home, I feel older and sadder. Alas. Such is this phase of life.

Tomorrow Jim goes back to Berkeley. Suzanne is already in El Salvador, tending to a sick guest who made the mistake of rinsing his mouth with the water.

I will travel to see both kids in the spring-summer months. When I visit Suzanne, I will bring a suitcase full of Prell and a bow and arrow to help me cope with those mega-cockroaches.

I always thought one plus of living in Poland, Ohio, was that it would encourage my kids to grow strong wings.

They wouldn't be like those kids who want to stay home forever so mom and dad can take care of them.

I'm still happy for the wings.

But I never anticipated the degree of my own sadness. Sigh.

Yard Pants and Brand Names

I am always impressed by people's interest in clothing brands. How many people care about labels. What's with those ugly purses and bags that cost so much money? And those lady's dress shoes you can't even walk in . . .

Ah well. Who am I to understand? I was raised in hand-me-downs and clothing items from the Sears catalog. Most of my clothes were brown or navy blue to hide stains. For years my mother refused even to buy us bathing suits. She thought they were over-priced. So she would dress her girls in giant, colorful underpants, which she called yard pants. (I'm still not sure if there is or was such a thing as yard pants. Did any one else out there wear yard pants? If so, will you leave me a comment? Please?)

Yard pants, according to my mother, are not underpants. They just look like them. On hot days she'd dress us in these yard pants and take us the local pool. I'd have to explain to my friends that I wasn't wearing underwear. Oh no. Not me. I was wearing a unique outfit that only my mother knew about. Some of my girl friends worried that my nipples were showing, so I would pull those pants all the way up over my nipples. Yes, those yard pants were unique. When I dove in the water, the bottoms would fill with water and bloom behind me.

Of course, I expect folks to be more fashion-conscious than my mother. Or me. Or anyone else who became accustomed to wearing yard pants in public as a girl. But there are places and times where I assume people will be more aware of brand names and the like.

I all but expected Suzanne's friends at Princeton to be brand savvy. Though some were not at all, and others took it to a new level. One day, for example, S was wearing a black T-shirt. No marking on it, no label. I mean a plain black shirt. Her friend turned to her and said, nice T-shirt. J Crew, last year's model.

But I didn't expect the same thing to occur in El Salvador, esp. in the hills of El Salvador in a community where people carry water and wood on their heads. But some of those folks know as much about brands as Princeton students. A teenage girl, for example, the daughter of a pineapple farmer, pointed out that my running shoes were Asics. Very expensive ones too. But she could tell that my shirts were just cheapo t-shirts. I just run in them, I explained. And what do you do with your shoes? she asked.

Other Allergies

Marzipan, Jane Austen movies, Mitt Romney, fake sugar, Nancy Kerrigan, aphorisms, auto-flush toilets that flush before or when you sit on them, Olivia Newton John singing Just Call Me Angel of the Morning, maraschino cherries, Mr. Rogers, floats, parades, state fairs, Richard Gere, 4:00 in the afternoon, fine print, cough syrup, nylons, rhinestones, doctor's offices, tissue paper gowns, the word:share as when someone says I just want to share a little secret with you, like the time this woman in a public restroom shared with me that she used hemorrhoid cream on her face to get rid of those fine lines . . . It works like a charm.


Let's see now. I think I'm just getting warmed up.

Allergies and Rainbows

Last night we went to First Night in Canfield.
Brady's Leap played--they were great. Really.

But I discovered I have a new allergy.
If I hear "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"
(which I heard 3 times)
one more time, I will go into convulsions.
I might stop breathing. Someone will have to dial 911.
Between that song and that Celine Dion song
from the Titanic . . .
I'm sorry, but this is a serious problem . . .
No matter how well the songs are sung . . .


Allergies, my doctor told me a few years ago,
are very serious.
You should not laugh at them.


My mother didn't believe in them either.
She used to make me eat crab, shrimp,
and lobster, even when my eyes watered
and my throat itched. Just three more bites.
After all these were delicacies.
It was rude to refuse them.
I learned you could eat anything,
even if your throat itches
if you suck ice during and after.
You have to swallow chunks of it.
And keep swallowing. Ice cream headache and all.

I told Mom the doctor said I might die of an allergy.
Mom was indignant.
That's why kids are allergic to everything now.
Their mothers are soft on them.

I don't know. I really don't.
But no matter how fine a delicacy it might be . . .
I'm thinking if your eyes water,
and you start gagging
and people are looking at you funny,
you should probably stop doing whatever you're doing.

To Tell the Truth?

I always wonder about memoirs. Biographies. How do you tell the truth? I like to tell little tiny tales about my family, but if I expand at all, there are too many contradictions.

My father, for example:

He cried when Hubert Humphrey was defeated but loved Ronald Reagan.

He insisted we go to church but also insisted we leave before the bellyaching about God began.

He worried about propriety --what others might think if only they knew -- but liked to burp, fart, and insult people to their faces. He always took his amazing farting dog to business meetings. He made a habit of accusing his associates of stinking the room up so much, he had to leave.

He also liked to dicuss his theory that Jesus was gay.

He was worried that my brother wasn't manly enough, while he, himself, loved picking out lipstick colors, dresses, necklaces, and all kinds of items my mother and sisters had no interest in. All you need is a touch of red lipstick, he'd tell me.

He was excellent at science, math, and logic, but he practiced every superstition known or unknown to man.

He thought it was unladylike to compete, discouraged his daughters from any kind of competition, and bragged outrageously when any of us won anything, even a sack race.

He blew up when any of his kids misbehaved but liked to brag about everything we did wrong. I heard him say once at a cocktail party: My son had a stellar marijuana crop this year. My one daughter was suspended for kidnapping the ice cream from the high school dining hall, and another one went grocery shopping in her underwear.

He was, I think, reasonably happy with his life, but he was just as happy to die. As he put it, I've been here way past my expiration date. It's good to be going now.

Which takes the prize?

I've heard some pretty dumb things lately. Tell me, which is the dumbest?

1. A kid in Spanish class said he had to learn Spanish. Why? Because he works at Home Depot. He said there are these signs in Spanish everywhere. You mean the signs with Spanish words underneath the English words? Like in Best Buy when it says musica under the word, music? Yeah, he said. I need to know what they mean.

2. A friend's son-in-law was looking at a picture of the three wise men. Who are these three men, dressed up kind of like Santa? he asked. Those are the three wise men, she answered. Really? he answered. I didn't know they had black men back then.

3. Before break one college student was talking to another about how she was driving south for Xmas break. She was really excited to be headed to the beach. She figured it wouldn't take that long to get to Florida because it was south. But it would take a lot longer getting back because she'd be driving north.

I guess south means downhill?

4. According to an article I read recently (I think it was that same article as the one below about the hugs), women practically have an orgasm when they chat. That's why women like to talk so much.

5. I heard this minister speak at an Episcopal Church in Cleveland. He said sex is about as important to a marriage as washing dishes.

I'm still wondering what kind of dishes he was talking about.

How to Make a Woman Trust You in Just 20 Seconds

I went to Starbucks today with this idea I'd work. But of course I just eavesdropped. I can't help myself. I have a chronic listening habit. Especially when the women next to me start talking about sex. (I was glad it was sex this time instead of weight or money or in-laws.) They were both thin and done-up just so. Pretty, I guess, in a seasoned way. One was saying that her new man had this thing about hugs. She thinks she's finally figured it out. He must have read somewhere that thing about how if you hug a woman for 20 seconds, she will trust you forever. And once she trusts you, well, you know. But, the woman added, I hate hugs. I don't just hate them. I despise them. I feel like I'm drowning when people hold me too long. A 20 second hug is just way too long. If he didn't hug me, I think we'd be having a really good time of it.

The other woman answered that most men don't know how to hug. They don't have a clue. You can't just throw your arms around a woman and then squeeze like she's a blow-up doll that needs to have the air pushed out of her. You have to do it just right. But you know how men are. Men think everything is so f-ing simple. Like hugs, compliments, or how you say thanks, that was really nice . . . They don't get it, that you have to finesse the moment.

I've been wondering about that finessing of the moment. Hmm.

I went home and googled the 20 second hug and sure enough, it's supposed to work, just as the woman says. A 20 second hug is a magic recipe for a woman's trust. I'm getting claustrophobia just thinking about it.
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/06/MNG3HKAMVO1.DTL

Dear Professor, Do You Live in a Vacuum?

Yes, in answer to a recent email, that's the title of my new chapbook. I've had a couple of people ask me how they can order a copy. A few have found the Subito site and complained that they have to play a computer game in order to place an order. It's true. You have to get the Subito bird to land on a nest. Otherwise, no books for you.

You can also just send an email to: editors@subitopress.org. Ask for whatever you want, and they will get back to you. Hopefully, the books will be on Amazon eventually. But flying computer birds around your screen isn't all that bad either, even if the nest seems to escape the bird every time.
If you're interested, click on www.subitopress.org

7 Weird Things about Me

in response to being tagged for this question.

1. I've never seen Leave It to Beaver. The first time I heard someone refer to June Cleaver, I asked if that was Eldridge's mother. (I grew up with no TV)

2. I've been drunk only once in my life, and that was when I was five years old.

3. I can't see out of both eyes at the same time, so I pick which eye to use.

4. When I was a girl, I was absolutely certain I flew at night. I even remember how I did it.

5. One of my earliest memories was of this man called Toby. Toby was an African American man who would come to our farm to catch turtles. He would take a burlap bag down to the pond and come back with a snapper bigger than I was. How did you catch it, I'd ask. He always said I just feel in the mud with my toes.

6. I've never eaten a Big Mac.

7. When I was girl, my mother used to like to show off her yoga postures for my friends. She would waltz into our game room and start into a yoga move. She did the same thing to my daughter and my daughter's friends years later. Watch me, she say. Then she'd stand on her head in the middle of the carpet. She did that until she was 87 years old.

Turtle Photo Essay by Jimmy

It's turtle weather again. I never go anywhere without one. You just never know when a turtle might come in handy, as Jimmy points out. A few other uses--a dog sweater, a tube top or jog bra, (or as Kelly would call them, a onesy for ones who fit into onesies), or a cover for books with embarrassing titles, the ones you read and don't want to admit, even to yourself, you are actually reading them.

Hotdogs and Good News

I've been away from my blog for so long, I almost forgot about it. It's that time of year I guess. The time to be too busy to remember your own name, life, thoughts.
I've been busy writing my Christmas story. It's called How to Love a Hotdog.

I'm very excited about How to Love a Hotdog. I mean I am so excited about it, I can't even say. I mean how does one love a hotdog? And I mean, really love a hot dog. A hotdog that is like no other hotdog?

Lot's of good things are happening. Karen Schubert's chapbook is due out soon. A little chapbook about all the places she lived, the lives she had as a child, and more. Much more. Karen is always much more. And in the best of all possible ways. The book is coming out from Pudding House.

Also, there is this wonderful essay by Kelly Bancroft called Boob Suit. No one writes like Kelly. She has this honesty that is beyond honesty. I love whatever she does.

www.jmww.150m.com/Bancroft.html

Then Brady's Leap is playing for New Years Eve at that St. Michaels in Canfield. I love to hear them play.

My chapbook, Dear Professor, Do You Live in a Vacuum?, is out now from Subito Press.

And it isn't raining-snowing or doing anything yet. I love snow. I love snow. I hate that snow-rain mix. I am praying it will just snow . . . None of that half-way stuff.

And my daughter, Suzanne, is coming home Monday night. She was a banana recently. I won't bother explaining. But I might post a picture. So please pray that the horrible storm that is forecast has blown over, and the travel gods let her fly in safely.

And my son, Jimmy, is flying in from California, the land of milk and honey, this weekend. I can't wait.

Even though I love snow, most of the time I really do, I hate anyone who has the luxury to live in California where the skies are blue, and the weather is warm. They always gloat. It's disgusting. And it just isn't fair. So if you live out there, and the sun is shining, I don't want to hear about it.

Shoveling Manure

People used to tell me how lucky I was to live on a farm. They had this romantic idea about farm life.

I'd smile. Yep. But the truth is, it was really boring. And it was lonesome. And dull. And hard work. A lot shoveling manure, no matter what the weather, no matter how I felt.

These days people tell me how lucky I am to be able to write. And they have this romantic idea about a writer's life.

And I think oh yeah, romantic. But the truth is, it's lonesome and tedious. Not that I'd trade it. But I think about how many times I go over and over the same sentence. I never, ever get it right. It's like going back into a stall I thought I'd cleaned a thousand times, and finding fresh, steaming shit.

There is just no end to the manure you have to shovel in this world. I swear, this is the one and only truth.

I sometimes imagine there are invisible critters I never see, but the minute I turn my back or shut my eyes, they enter my rooms, stories, or poems, or any other place I thought I'd polished, cleaned, perfected, and they start crapping. Some are subtle, and leave only tiny marks, maybe little teeth punctures. I don't notice at first. (Even editors let me get by with a few mouse turds in between my better lines.) Other's I don't even want to think about. I mean, they let loose. It's just what happens. The evidence is everywhere. And what can I do about it?

Learning French from Buffy the Vampire

Today I talked to Mom on the phone about what she calls "my impressive children." She is so impressed with Suzanne. Especially for learning all those languages, she says. Tell me again how she became fluent in French? I'm not sure Suzanne is fluent exactly, but my mother doesn't want to be corrected. So I tell her again how Suzanne spent the summer in France with a family who lived in a tiny apartment and never went out. They sat on the couch and watched Buffy the Vampire reruns in French all day long.

Who is Buffy the Vampire, my mom asks again. You've never heard of Buffy? I ask, also again. I don't tell her that I think Buffy the Vampire sounds like a good name for a porn star. My mom is 90 years old, and she doesn't talk of such things. Shoot, she's going to be 91 in a few months.

Then she asks about Jimmy. That son, she says, who does those things I don't understand. He's brilliant to do them, she adds quickly. That's why I married your father. He made brilliant offspring. (My mother gives my father credit for all signs of intelligence on earth, esp. now that my father is dead.)

So tell me again what Jimmy does? I try to avoid the topic of computer science, but she loves the words, artificial intelligence and film graphics. I think they remind her of Buffy the Vampire.

Soon she's tired. I'm too old for all this, she says. I'll leave the vampires and the computers to your children. I'm glad they didn't have those when I was your age. She says goodbye suddenly, sounding happy to have chatted, and happy not to have what she calls "our lives" to look forward to.

What I Learned from the Heifers

I remember once overhearing my parents talking.

Dad: Don't you think you should talk to her about the facts of, you know, married life?
Mom: Which facts?
Dad: You know what I mean, Jane. Talk to her. She's going to be married soon.
Mom: She doesn't need me to talk to her. She's a farm girl. She's watched the heifers.
Dad: She's not a heifer, Jane.
Mom: If the heifers can figure it out, I'm sure she can too.

Salt

Today in the news there is an article about salt.
It says don't eat so much of it.
It says salt is bad for your heart.
You will die younger
and young of heart
if you eat loads of salt.
Ah, but what if you love salt?
Heart and soul? I mean, what if
you REALLY LOVE salt?
When I was a girl, I loved salt so much
I would pour it on my hand and lick it.
I'd lick the tops of crackers
or suck them just for the salt.
I liked the taste of sea water.
And sweat.
If I wouldn't eat something,
my dad would pour salt on it
and I'd suck it right down.
I'd even lick the salt blocks
in the cow pasture.
Those are for the heifers, Mom would say
whenever she caught me.
After a while she just said,
those are for the heifers and Nin.
(She never worried
when I shared things with her cows.
She liked us about the same.)
She figured we were farm kids,
immune to germs, unlike those delicate urbanites
in their antiseptic homes.
What do they do in there,
she'd ask sometimes when we drove
through the burbs, the TV lights flickering.
We didn't own a TV.
And Mom could never sit still anyhow
or stay inside.
She liked being in the garden or fields.
And she liked cows.
I never understood how anyone could like cows.
They're dumb and smelly.
They fart and shit and eat all day long.
But Mom used to say
we have a lot in common with cows.
We, too, like to eat and eat and eat.
All day long we like to eat.
And we like salt.
She admitted she liked salt too.
Once I even got her to lick a salt block
herself. Admittedly it was a new block,
not one that had been in the fields yet,
not yet softened and smoothed by cow tongues.
She said it wasn't so bad.
She even agreed when I said salt licks
are some of the best-tasting salt ever.
I suggested we could serve something like it
as an appetizer. Little cubes of cow salt
for guests. I thought about it for years.
How you could hold the cubes in your mouth
and suck them down like sugar.
That way I, for one, would be sure I died
when I was still young at heart.
Who wants to die with an old heart?
Not having enjoyed the salt of life?

Never been to a mall

My daughter, Suzanne, took Marecela, the girl in this photo, to register for college on Monday at the Universidad Tecnologica in San Salvador. Marecela is one of the recipients of a university scholarship (from a scholarship program set up by S and another Peace Corps volunteer). Amazing experience, I imagine. After registering, they went to a mall where they were to meet their ride. M. had never been to a store before, much less a mall. She sat on a bench and just stared . . .

Blowing in the wind

pic. by my son, Jimmy

Oh my God, I forgot my helmet and now look at my hair!

Congrats to Jimmy for publication of his story, "Chick Magnet," and for having his computer game, "Mr Heart Loves You Very Much," selected by Montreal's Game Competition. (I'm not sure what the event in Montreal is called).

Reading November 29

Yep, it's my last scheduled reading for 2007.
At Kent State . . .
at the Kent Stark Campus
at 7:30
in the Library Conference Room
(which is right in front of you
when you enter from the Frank Road entrance).

Robert Miltner,
(one of the nicest humans on earth
and a really great poet)
invited me to read
with Kirk Nesset,
who just won the Drue Heinz Award.

The address:
Kent State University Stark
6000 Frank Ave NW
Canton, OH 44720

Class

These are from Suzanne's classes. I've yet to unload my photos . . . But the school is tiny, and it takes in about 360 kids a day in 2 shifts. The first shift is 8:00 to 12:00. The second is 1:00 to 5:00. The same teachers teach both shifts. Everyone packs into the little cement rooms. It's hot! Maybe high 80s. And really humid. I was soaked with sweat, but everyone else seemed chill. The first time I went there (last March), I had this idea I'd wash up before meeting the teachers. I forgot . . . no running water, no real bathrooms . . . Suzanne, teaching environmental education, finds ways to stay outdoors.

Travel Fatigue

I am so glad I don't have another trip for a while. When I have to travel a lot, I feel as if I never really land. I am always thinking of my next take-off date.

I am reminded of the story about the man who was afraid of flying . . . One day he finally had to board a plane. Afterwards, when asked how it went, he answered that it was just fine. Why? Because he never put his feet down.

My pathetic Spanish has finally gotten to the point where I can understand a bit but am way too slow to answer as effectively as I'd like. I can hear people talking about me. Like the man ahead of me in line saying to his pal that all gringos look alike. Like the woman, looking at my daughter and me, commenting that American women are really skinny but sure can eat a lot. And another man asking his friend why my husband would let me travel alone. American men let their wives do all kinds of things . . .

I actually spoke more Spanish in Miami. The Miami Book Fair is a mad house. But Denise Duhamel and Nick Carbo are the nicest, greatest poets and people ever.

I found two new authors to love madly: Abigail Thomas and Marlena Morling.

About El Salvador: there were some icky things . . . the armed guards with their big guns, the heat, the poverty, and the smell of burning plastic. (How else, folks ask, are we to take care of the garbage problem? The smell is nauseating.) Also, I never knew a cockroach could grow as big as my hand . . .

Good things . . . the beaches of El Salvador are beautiful. The village where Suzanne works is really pretty . . . up in the hills, and everyone is so friendly and welcoming. (Okay, so they all come to their doors and stare.) And I loved the kids in our poetry class. The kids were so happy to have their own packet of poems to take home, to have a chance to write their own poems . . .

When Suzanne and I went running, the kids from every house raced out into the streets and ran with us. Packs of kids . . . ending back at her house for water and giggles.

Poemas

Back from El Salvador at last! A few poems below from the school kids. They were beautiful. No two ways about it. One assignment (which we never got to because we ran out of time) was to write the exact details of today. I told them that when they were as old as I was, they would not remember today. They giggled. Clearly they could not imagine it, being old like me. I remember as a girl, thinking I would never ever turn into a woman, esp. an old woman.


Poemas

Centro Escolar San José Carrizal

Primer Taller de Poesía, Martes 13 de Noviembres


El sol y la luna y los girasoles

Kendy de Lourdes Cerón, 10 años


Todas las noches

los girasoles despiertan…


Para aprender lo que

La luna en lo alto de las nubes enseñaba

Pero la luna solo les enseñaba la vocal “o”.


Los girasoles ya estaban

Aburridos de la vocal

Un día aunque no había luna

Apareció el sol que les dijo

Yo les enseñare y les enseño

Todas las vocales.

Un girasol le pregunto

¿De que palabra viene la

Letra “e”? y respondió la letra

Viene de la palabra tierra.


The sun and the moon and the sunflowers


Every night

The sunflowers awoke…


In order to learn what the moon

In the height of the clouds would teach them

But the moon only taught them the vowel “o”

The sunflowers grew bored

Of the letter.


One day although there was no moon

The sun appeared and told them

I will teach you and then taught them

All of the vowels.

One of the sunflowers asked:

What word does the letter “e” come from?

And the sun answered: The letter “e”

Comes from the word earth.





Una mañana tan hermosa

Un sol iluminaba muchas arboles,

Muchas flores hermosas

Y un aire tan fresco


En una noche tan linda

La luna iluminaba la tierra

Los niños desde sus cassas miraban

Las nubes y las estrellas



One beautiful morning

A sun illuminated many trees

Many beautiful flowers

And a cool breeze


In one beautiful night

The moon illuminated the earth

The children from their houses watched

The clouds and the stars

Miami and El Salvador

I leave for Miami tomorrow . . . a weekend at the book fair before flying to El Salvador for a week. I have my Spanish poems in hand and my lesson plan to teach a class with Suzanne, but all the Spanish I know has suddenly abandoned me . . .

What do you do?

Sometimes, when asked, I tell people I'm a poet. Usually I try to think up another definition for myself. Dreamer, cow whisperer, harpoonist, griddler, lemming. If I say I write, I dread these two familiar responses . . . Why do you do that? Meaning you can't get rich that way, now can you? The other: I write too. Would you like to see my poems?

Maybe it's a little unfair, but I love it when Jim, a physicist, has a similar problem. My two favorite responses to his profession . . . Wow, so you can explain string theory? And: I have this idea for a perpetual motion machine. I'm sure it will work. My only problem is that I never studied physics so maybe we could talk and . . .

The Runners

I leave for Miami for the book festival this coming Thursday. Then I'm off to El Salvador to visit Suzanne. We'll teach a poetry class in her school, and maybe I'll take run with her team of young runners. Here they are pictured with their new shoes.

pic by Jimmy

The Bird Man

Do you ever remember a story your parents told and look for it years later,
only to wonder if they made it up?

There's a story my father used to tell me when I was sick. Now I can't find anywhere . . . A kind of fairytale about a bird man. If I asked him, he would take a pen and draw a picture of the bird man in the story.

The bird man had this problem. You see, he plucked his feathers out. Why? Nobody knew for sure.

But there were three possible answers.

One, he was an artist. It was only by pulling out his feathers that he could weave them into a beautiful tapestry that told the story of his life.

Two, he was a scientist. It was only by taking out his feathers and examining their structure that he could understand how he flew.

Three, he was man. It was his nature to tear himself apart one feather at a time so he would never soar too high and would always live close to the ground.

In any case, according to the story, we descended from the bird man. That's why we still dream of flight and angels.

Hostess would like you to know

Twinkies do not last for eternity.
Out of the packaging,
they only stay fresh for 25 days.

Dear Diary,

I bet you've missed me. I've been gone a whole week. I had my eyes operated on. Now I have to wear a patch for weeks, and I can see the little stitches where they sewed up my eye balls. Gross.

That was an entry in my grade school diary. Usually I just told my diary what I wanted most. Like snow. Please make it snow.

I wonder whom I thought I was writing to then.

I wonder that now sometimes too.

It is not an urban myth?

Okay, so I was telling my husband and friends at dinner that a woman found a python in her toilet, and they started teasing me. I thought maybe I was nuts, but it's true. At least if you believe the news.

I've been thinking about what that would be like. To find yourself seated over a python . . .

Preciosa Dumlao - AHN News Writer
Brooklyn, NY (AHN) - A 38-year-old restaurateur found a 7-foot-long python in her toilet while she was washing her hands early Monday. She said most of the venomous python's body was hidden in the pipes and was trying to come out of her bathroom.

The New Yorker Nadege Brunacci said, "I turned on the light and screamed. It still makes my heart race."

According to Brunacci, when she saw the snake, she yelled for help.

Her landlord came to see what happened and plumbers had to tear down the pipes to trap down the snake.

She said it is questionable how the snake got into her bathroom pipes.

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7008867591

Radio and embarrassing moments

Last night I did a radio reading. I could hear myself echo back into my ear, as if my words were making fun of me.
I think they were.
I felt as if I were talking to the air, and only I was listening. An eerie feeling.
As soon as it was over, I wanted to fix it, make it better.
So much of conversation is like that. So many words get sent out into the air, wishing they had a second chance . . .

At night I dreamt I was back in first grade. I had a solo, and I started singing all the wrong words. I woke up in a sweat, remembering the concert exactly. It was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. I was all dressed up in black velvet with silky red ribbons in my hair. I felt like a movie star, and I wanted to be sure everyone heard me. So I sang as loud as I could: I had grits and eggs for breakfast. My cow, Mildred, died last week. She got the bloat.

I think I was supposed to be singing Deck the Halls . . .

That night my mother told me it's eggs, not aay-eggs. My father phoned Mrs. Wallace, my first grade teacher, and asked her never to give me a solo again.

The Spartans

The Spartans have always fascinated me. My mother used to read me tales about the Spartans, esp. the one about the boy-warrior who had a pet fox who ate his entrails . . . But I'll save that for another time.

In today's encore excerpt from Delancey Place, the rigors and rituals of Spartans, the fiercest warriors of the ancient world, circa 560 B.C.:

"Even the newest-born baby was subjected to the proddings of old men. Should an infant be judged too sickly or deformed to make a future contribution to the city, then the elders would order its immediate termination. ... A cleft beside the road which wound over the mountains to Messenia, the Apothetae, or 'Dumping Ground,' provided the setting for the infanticide. There, where they might no longer shame the city that had bred them, the weak and deformed would be slung into the depths of the chasm ...

"[I]t was the goal of instructors not merely to crush a boy's individuality, but to push him to startling extremes of endurance, discipline and impassivity, so that he might prove himself, supremely, as a being reforged of iron. ... Denied adequate rations, the young Spartan would be encouraged to forage from the farms of neighboring Lacedaemonians, stalking and stealing like a fox, refining his talent for stealth. Whether in the heat of summer or in the cold of winter, he would wear only one style of tunic, identical to that worn by his fellows, and nothing else, not even shoes. ...

"[A]t the age of twelve, he became legal game for cruising. Pederasty was widely practised elsewhere in Greece, but only in Sparta was it institutionalized-- even, it is said, with fines for boys who refused to take a lover.

"Just as boys were trained for warfare, so girls had to be reared for their future as breeders. The result--to foreign eyes, at any rate--was an inversion of just about every accepted norm. In Sparta, girls were fed at the expense of their brothers. To the bemusement of other Greeks, they were also taught to read, and to express themselves not modestly, as was becoming for women, but in an aggressively sententious manner, so that they might better instruct their own children in what it meant to be a Spartan. They exercised in public: running, throwing the javelin, even wrestling."

Tom Holland, Persian Fire, Abacus, 2005, pp. 81-85. From delanceyplace.com

Familiar Story

Last night Suzanne called to tell of a friend in El Salvador,
a high school girl, who was beaten by her dad
so badly she had to go to the doctors
and to the police. Of course the police did nada.
She is such a great kid,
Suzanne said. Never in trouble.
Always trying to be helpful.

The kind who always does whatever her daddy says
because, after all, he brought her up right, right?
Didn't I bring you up right?
he shouts sometimes late at night.
The neighbors hear him (don't they?)
though no one ever complains.
Maybe they hear the wife saying,
stop now, stop.
But he keeps shouting . . .
And don't you make a fool of me . . .
Don't you ever run around
in the streets with boys like those other girls . . ..
But she's a smart girl, this girl.
She knows if the boys don't abuse her,
her daddy will . . .

Why is this story so familiar?

Q and A

I always hate the Q and A part of a reading. It takes all my mental energy to stand up and read, and there isn't any left to answer questions. A well-meaning aspiring poet might ask those seemingly simple questions. For example, why is a prose poem a prose poem, esp. the one you read that sounds like it has an internal rhyme scheme? Is it just a question of line breaks?

Instead of answering I wish I could ask my own questions.

1. Tell me, Darling, what is your relationship with structure and meaning, form and message? Does your body and face tell who you are? Are you sure, or are you lying even now? Where is your soul, and does it fly?

2. Can you explain to me the magic of your favorite lines of poetry? Do you know what a satori is? Or what meaning means? Is this just this?

3. Can you define the relationship between the divine and silky mauve shirts? Or tiramisu, sepia photos of the dead, and fountain pens, the kind with just the right ink flow. Not too much, not too little. Only black ink will do . . . And the right kind of porous stationary . . . .

4. Do you have a favorite wish? Lust? Lie? If so, do you know you should never say it aloud? And what will happen if you do? And why?

Female Athletes

I love female athletes. I get such a high from watching women compete. Somewhere in the back of my head, I can still hear Dad's voice . . . "Back in my days men wouldn't care for a woman with legs like yours. Too many muscles . . . It just doesn't look right." But listening to Marion Jones weep and confess after all of her bold claims of innocence was so depressing. Those performance enhancing drugs, I believe, are here to stay. Sad.

Also sad to see are the number of anorexic runners, like the girl on Suzanne's team who couldn't believe that Suzanne didn't mind being "fat." Her coach told me once that he couldn't allow some of his faster runners to compete in the steeple chase or the longer track races because they didn't eat enough, over-trained and generally didn't take care of their bodies. Female runners, he said, have a higher injury rate than football players.

Hurdles

After one hurdle, there's always another. And I thought I was going to rest between the jumps?

Haven't I learned anything yet?

Track Side

Lately I've been walking the dogs past the football field, seeing the boys ram into each other, the girls cheer, the parents on the side, shouting and cheering. I've never been a football fan, never cared for cheerleaders, but I spent years and years track side. I never really thought I'd miss it, but now sometimes I get a little ache for that thrill of watching a kid put all of his or her energy into a competition. I remember a coach sobbing one day when my daughter, Suzanne, broke a college record. He came over and shook me. There's nothing like it, he shouted. Nothing like it. Watching it all happen and in a matter of a few minutes.

There is something amazing about it. But it's not just in sports. Watching people I love succeed makes me feel so proud, so high, I sometimes feel I as if I'll burst open. Watching my life-long friend, Anne Marie Slaughter, on the Colbert report was one such high. (She was awesome!) Reading my friend, Mary Beth's, first published poem was another. And watching my son graduate made me cry even if I thought the ceremony would never end. I sometimes think it's easier to be really happy for someone else than for oneself . . .

Another beautiful poem by Kelli

I have to add one more Kelli poem to my blog, a poem about death and birds. I've always wondered about the link between birds and death in our minds. Of course I understand the wings, the angels, death and so forth. But the beliefs are so strong. A few years ago when we were having our house worked on, I came home to find two burly carpenters outside, afraid to re-enter the house. Why? Because there was a bird inside. Evidently, they'd left the door open, and a robin had flown in. The poor robin was beating against the windows, trying to escape. The men warned me that death would soon follow the bird.


When Women Die, Waxwings Appear

By evening, the tips of their wings are dusty
from footsteps of men who don't know
what to do with themselves,

from children jumping rope
in an abandoned lot unaware
that anything has changed.

Waxwings appear in the madrona.
Someone has died and they try to carry sadness
to a bed of twigs, search for string and straw,
small branches to weave into edges.

By nightfall, the tips of their wings are arrows
for the men who don't know where to go,
for children looking for their way home.

At times, a bird will steal tissue from the hand
of a mourner, cover its nest to keep grief
from slipping back into families living below.

These days every limb contains a nest;
there are never enough wings to hold the men
who try to comfort their children who linger
with hope of finding a new home.

from Small Knots by Kelli Russell Agodon

Don't Worry. Be Happy.

Just when I was beginning to think, don't worry, be happy, Bill sent me an article from Patagonia to remind me of the bad news about plastics . . . How it's everywhere and in everything, esp. in our bodies.

Add to that, today I was at the hair salon, and the woman next to me started telling me how she was sure her daughter's breast cancer came from plastics. An elderly woman, she said her daughter was from the microwave generation. So she never cooked anything because it took too long. Instead she microwaved it. The plastic on the top of the frozen foods she microwaved melted into the food and into her body. And all that microwave cookware, you know that stuff isn't natural. Whatever it's made of shouldn't be near food . . .
If she's just learned to cook rather than to microwave, she might still have her breasts.

She reminded me of the article:

" . . . bisphenol A seeps out of polycarbonate plastic when it's heated or exposed to acids and also as it ages. Sometimes labeled , Recycler Image 7, polycarbonate is used in baby bottles, transparent reusable water bottles (but not the bottles water is sold in), food packaging and utensils, coffeemakers, kitchen appliances, and numerous other products. Bisphenol A also forms the epoxy resins used to line food cans and is in dental sealants. It mimics the effects of estrogen and has been linked to prostate cancer and precancerous breast tissue in animal studies."

The article said a lot more too. I'm too depressed to post more of it here today. I can rest assured that corporate America doesn't want me to worry about this. I can hear it singing, don't worry. Be happy.

from Practical Values: Hard to Break
By Elizabeth Grossman

Kelli Russell Agodon

I just started Small Knots, this beautiful book of poems by Kelli Russell Agadon. I am totally in heaven, just where I want to be with a book, any book . . . I who always want to leave this world and find another. This is just one of my favorite poems so far:

A Mermaid Questions God

As a girl she hated the grain of anything
on her fins. Now she is part fire ant, part centipede.
Where the dunes stretch into pathways, arteries appear.
Her blood pressure is temperature plus wind speed.

Where religion is a thousand miles of coastline,
she is familiar with moon size, with tide changes.
She wears the cream of waves like a vestment,
knows undertow is imaginary, not something to pray to.

Now her questions involve fairytales, begin
in a garden and lead to hands painted on a chapel's ceiling.
She wants to hold the ribbon grass, the shadow of angles
across the shore. She steals a Bible from the Seashore Inn;

she will trust it only if it floats.